


Origins: The Silver Shepherd

by Inkribbon796



Series: Masks and Maladies [37]
Category: Markiplier fandom - Fandom
Genre: Egoton Origins, Gen, Masks and Maladies, Superpowers, Vigilantism, getting superpowers from a force of nature, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21696895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkribbon796/pseuds/Inkribbon796
Summary: A town under the iron heel of a monster, and a hero rises to the challenge.
Series: Masks and Maladies [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538131
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	1. When the Void Looks Back

~::~25 Years Ago~::~

Mark had been living in Egoton as far back as he could remember. He’d been born in Hawaii, but had lived his whole life here. Egoton, in the kindest regards was one of the worst places to live. It was under the heel of a creature that couldn’t die, and an equally crazy reporter who ran the news and seemed to keep everyone in line.

His life was spiraling out of control and even at 21, he felt like he was staring at the uncaring jaws of death. He’d just come out from a surgery to get rid of a tumor a couple months ago. So after a rather terrifying existential nightmare of realizing that he’d done nothing with his life, he was trying to figure out how to fix it.

He’d started going back to class again, probably shouldn’t be but he was so close to the end of the year and didn’t want his grades to tank.

So he was walking from the bus stop to his apartment he shared with four other guys. He just wanted to go home and take a nap. Maybe play some Quake mods after he finished up his homework.

“Fire!” Someone screamed.

As if set off by some primal urge, Mark ran towards the sound, his stomach hurt a bit but after controlling his speed and movement for a bit he made it into an alleyway where there wasn’t a fire. Someone was being attacked.

The guy looked like one of Dark’s mafia enforcers. He had some young woman that looked about Mark’s age backed up into the corner of the alleyway.

To Mark’s chagrin, he did hesitate, but as the woman kept begging to let her go and the guy was being a creep, he finally did move. Mark crept up as slowly as possible, and carefully grabbed a nearby pipe from a bunch of trash bags near the mouth of the alley.

He had one shot really, the guy had a knife in his hands, and Mark wasn’t in the best of shape since his surgery. The girl either didn’t realize he was there, or was doing her part to not sell him out.

“Let me go,” she tried to push him off.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he spat.

Mark quickly hit the guy on the head and he just went down. “Go,” he told the woman.

“Thank you so much,” she said, already starting to walk over the unconscious gangster’s body.

“Just go,” he urged, and tried to leave as quickly as possible, burying the pipe he’d taken back with the others and trying to escape as fast as his body would let him. Mark didn’t look behind him or stop fleeing until he was in his apartment, deadbolting it and finally catching his breath.

It was only then that Mark realized how much he was shaking. Carefully limping over to the couch and sitting down. He needed a nap, badly, and maybe when he woke up his body would stop shaking.

Mark didn’t tell anyone what had happened. He didn’t want the press, and he knew his friends weren’t involved with Dark or his network, but he didn’t want to chance someone overhearing something.

The bigger problem, at least for Mark, was that he found himself looking for trouble. It took a couple more weeks for him to figure out that he hadn’t been shaking just because of fear or because he was coming off a surgery.

It was the adrenaline.

Mark couldn’t quite put his finger on why beating a mafia guy was the thing that seemed to get his blood pumping. But the fact of the matter was that Mark found himself barely a month after saving the woman, who he hadn’t run into again, looking for more of Dark’s enforcers. It was dark, late at night. Honestly Mark shouldn’t be out here, but no one else was going to do anything else about Dark and his thugs. So Mark  _ had _ to do something. Sometimes it felt like he was the only one who could.

So Mark and a friend were investigating one of the warehouses that Dark was known to almost never visit. Maybe once in a blue moon, but in Mark’s paltry research he knew that there was a warehouse Dark worked out of, but which? Mark had no idea. All he knew was that it wasn’t the one he was at right now.

“Hey, Mark,” Daniel whispered as he crept up, finally catching up to him. Daniel was one of Mark’s roommates, and so far the only of them that Mark had told what he was starting to do on the weekends. Both of them were in masks. Mark in a black and white outfit that looked more like an alien than he intended. Daniel was in a blue outfit with a cyan-colored mask and sash.

“Not my name,  _ Iblis _ ,” Mark hissed.

Even though the mask, Mark saw him roll his eyes. “Fine, Silver, whatever.”

The two guys Mark was watching finished loading the boxes into the back of a covered truck.

“This is a bad idea,” Daniel reminded him.

“Go home, then,” Mark whispered, and smiled as the two enforcers left the truck alone to go back inside. “I got this.”

Mark crept towards the truck, Daniel trying to call after him but Mark was already at the side of the covered truck and climb into the back. He was pretty sure he was alone until he heard the faint thud of Daniel climbing into the truck with him.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Mark whispered, smiling.

“Shut up,” Daniel scoffed. “This is dumb. We shouldn’t be here.”

“We’ll be gone before they even know we’re here,” Mark promised, already starting to check the boxes. The first box he opened however was empty. So were the next five.

“Why are they all empty,” Mark realized.

Then the two heard voices as the doors locked. Plunging the two of them into darkness, but from the slightest sliver of light from the nearby street lights outside. Mark was thankful it was dark, because he could feel Daniel glaring at him.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got this,” Mark told him quietly. “As long as we don’t get taken to the main warehouse, we’re good.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Daniel spat. “You got us into this mess, so get us back out.”

“We wait for them to open the door and knock them out,” Mark made sure to still talk quietly, not waiting to tip off their presence to the drivers of the truck. It took forever, enough time for Daniel to stop being so furious with him, and the last part of the trip was a steep incline.

Finally, there was a creaking and metallic grinding sound. Then, the truck stopped.

Mark and Daniel braced, both of them creeping towards the door.

“Alright,” one of the enforcers groaned. “It’s late, I hate this place.”

“Can’t believe the bastard lives here,” the other enforcer chuckled nervously. “Place gives me the—”

The door opened and Mark smiled as he saw that the two enforcers were standing close enough. Mark and Daniel grabbed an enforcer each and pulled them into the truck, muting them and choking them out so they couldn’t raise an alarm. Mark struggled to close the door a bit to muffle the sound.

Once they were taken care of, Mark opened the door all the way, and they stepped out in what looked like a poorly constructed hangerbay. Like it had been meant to hold horses and carriages and instead now held cars. The ground was compacted dirt, two large windows at horse height that looked like they could be opened as doors to take horses through. The place felt like it should reek of mold and old money. But it didn’t smell like anything.

They didn’t get far before everything went south. Mark could barely take the triumphant smile from their entry off his face before the world began to turn into shades of gray. Mark froze, as a ringing echoed shrilly off every surface around him.

Daniel cursed, immediately turning to the closest door, which was the huge garage door the truck had entered through. He barely made it two steps, Mark trying to cover Daniel’s back, but it was much too late.

Mark would later come to his own conclusion that Dark probably knew they were there when they entered the Manor. The more they ran, the further the front door got from them. Mark finally grabbed Daniel, pinning him in place, “We’re just wearing ourselves out.”

“He’s going to,” Daniel spat back.

“I’d rather do this here, than half-dead in an endless corridor,” Mark looked around, trying to keep Daniel behind him.

After a full minute, Mark felt goosebumps all over his body, and Daniel startled. Mark looked behind them, and in between the two vigilantes and the door was Dark. The creature looked more like some Eldritch monster wearing a human skin suit. Its neck gave two deafening  _ snaps _ as Dark’s neck snapped from side to side.

Mark almost jumped out of his own skin, trying to get Daniel away from the inhuman being. The realization of how human and mortal not only Mark was, but how vulnerable Daniel was hit him like a truck. Suddenly all the rumors about him seemed horrifyingly true as both vigilantes were grabbed by shadowy wispy tendrils. Both of them were painfully squeezed.

Dark smiled, looking at the two intruders up and down before he paced around them. “Well I’m used to masks,” Dark said, surprising Mark by the low human voice that came from such a clearly inhuman creature. “Have to say, the spandex is new.”

“What?” Mark said, Dark snapped his head to look at Mark.

Maybe it was the shock, or the fact that his brain had processed that he was going to die and didn’t bother telling him, but he opened his mouth and said the dumbest thing ever. “What are you?”

Even Mark was surprised by his own sudden fearlessness.

Daniel let out a scream, as Dark began to tighten his hold on Daniel. Dark, for his part, calmly stared at Mark. Even if vigilante could see the malice and bottomless pit inside the entity’s eyes, as if bubbling just under the surface.

“Who are you?” Dark asked. “Don’t make me kill your friend.”

Mark felt nauseous, unable to help or protect Daniel, “You’re going to kill us anyways.”

Dark grinned evilly, one of his fingers going to the bottom of Mark’s silver mask, “Oh, I can do far worse than kill you.”

Then, slowly he started to lift Mark’s mask, and Mark absolutely panicked. He reacted without thought, although even if Mark had thought of the situation for longer than a second, he didn’t really know what else he could have done. In an act of terrified stupidity, Mark bit his hand.

Two things happened. First, Mark had the sensation that he’d bitten into something akin to clay. Second, Dark looked honestly surprised for a second, before he looked absolutely furious.

Dark threw Mark into Daniel, knocking them both down onto the ground. “I was going to just kill you two,” Dark roared at them. “But it looks like mercy’s off the table boys. I’ll let the House have you instead!”

Mark used what little sense he had left to grab onto Daniel’s cape, the first part of him he could reach, and the whole world went black as Mark had the sensation he was falling. It felt like he was being ripped away from Daniel and Mark felt himself scream rather than hear it.

Time seemed to unfold, as if he had lived a whole lifetime he didn’t remember experiencing, but it only lasted a second. He fell through what looked like red mist that seemed to be trying to stick to his clothing. Then, he felt himself hit the ground and he blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

Mark startled awake, bolting out of bed like he was being electrocuted. He was confused and immediately scrambled away from the surface, and hit the wall of his bedroom. Putting a hole in the drywall.

“What the?” One of Mark’s roommates, Bob, startled awake in his own bed. It was early, too early enough for the sun to be up.

Mark was still a bit dazed and confused. “Dan? Dan!”

Bob rushed over, “Hey, what happened?”

“I,” Mark halted, confused and disoriented. “I— Where am I?”

“In our room?” Bob asked, sounding concerned. “Are you okay? Did you and Dan go drinking last night? You two came home pretty late.”

“What?” Mark asked, his racing heart calming down. “You know I can’t drink.”

“You two came home acting super weird,” Bob reminded. “You’re still acting weird, but now I’m tired and you owe me coffee from now until the end of time.”

“I gotta go check on Dan,” Mark mumbled and drew a hand down his face. He almost fell out of bed, hoping that everything still buzzing around in his head had been just a dream.

“Right, don’t wake Wade, cause he’ll probably take your head off,” Bob yawned.

“Whatever,” Mark looked back at him and pulled the doorknob and walked forward, colliding right with the door.

Bob looked up at the crunch of flimsy metal, suddenly way less tired. “Mark,” Bob began. “What was that?”

Confused, Mark looked down at the door to find it still closed, and he was holding the destroyed knob in his hand. Normally he would have chalked it up to flimsy maintenance. But the doorknob looked like it’d been crunched like paper.

Mark screamed and dropped the doorknob. “What the shit!?” He screamed it probably loud enough to wake the neighbors in the next apartment over.

After a second or two, there was another scream, this one Wade’s. Mark quickly popped the other side of the doorknob out of the door and threw it open. He caught Wade racing into the kitchen to grab the fire extinguisher and raced back into his room with it. Mark raced over to the other bedroom, but after three steps found his feet were no longer touching the ground. He was floating about a foot off the ground. Bob was just staring at him, rubbing at his eyes.

Wade was trying to suppress a fire in the other bedroom as the fire alarm began to go off.

“What did you do last night?” Bob demanded as he walked over.

“I don’t know,” Mark started freaking out, trying to press carefully off the ceiling to go back to the ground. His feet couldn’t seem to attach themselves to the ground.

The chaos was made worse when Daniel raced by, bits of foam from the extinguisher clinging to his singed clothes. He had a panicked look on his face as he raced to the bathroom, not even talking to Mark or Bob. Wade was following him with the extinguisher.

“Hey, you want this thing?” Wade called after him.

“Yes!” Daniel cried out in a panic as the shower started.

“Coming!” Wade raced past them and into the bathroom, the fire extinguisher didn’t go off again, which let Mark concentrate on trying to consciously adhere to the laws of gravity for the first time in his life.

“Mark stop floating,” Bob told him.

“I’m trying,” Mark barked back, actually needing to grab onto Bob to keep himself from hitting the ceiling again. He tried to focus on anything that got him back on the ground. After panicking a bit, and winding up back on the ceiling. After some effort, Mark was able to use him hands to almost handstand on the ceiling.

On the plus side, it seemed to be working to get him closer to the ground. He was able to float upright instead of sideways or upside-down.

After a while, Wade emerged from the bathroom with the fire extinguisher and took a hard look at Mark who was still floating. “What the hell—”

“Yeah what did you two do last night?” Bob asked. “You act like you had a round of drinks and then one of you floats.”

“Daniel just lit himself on fire,” Wade agreed. “Three times.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Mark responded, he had to correct his position so he was right-side-up.

“I do,” Daniel answered as he stormed out of the bathroom, the shower still going and Dan was still in his clothes but was soaking wet. At the shock of Dan’s sudden arrival, Mark hit the ceiling again. “Mark almost got us killed by Dark.”

“Why?” Wade balked.

“Like I knew the truck was going to drive off empty and it was going to take us to his base,” Mark rambled. “But I never should have brought you.”

“Glad we agree,” Dan told him, his shoulder starting to smoke. Wade ran into the bathroom to grab the fire extinguisher.

“If I’m absolutely calm, nothing bad happens,” Dan said shakily, patting at his own shoulder, Wade approached him carefully.

“Are you?” Wade asked.

“Yeah,” Dan said, before checking the clock. “Ugh, I’m going to be exhausted at work.”

“Same,” Bob groaned.

Mark was already moving towards the kitchen to try and move himself back down to the ground. He looked at Dan, still soaking wet, and felt guilty again. Remembering how easily Dark could have killed Dan. He was left to stew in his thoughts as Dan showered and got ready for the day, the fire extinguisher actually empty so it was left in the corner. Bob and Wade went back to bed, Dan didn’t. Mark was practicing trying to keep himself on the ground.

After a while, Dan walked into the kitchen. “Hey,” Dan began.

“I never should have asked you to come,” Mark repeated, anchoring himself to the table. “You shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have even been there.”

“You’re going to do it again, aren’t you?” Dan deadpanned.

The refusal was on the tip of his tongue, but it seemed to get lodged in his throat.

“He’s gonna kill you,” Daniel repeated.

“Hey, I can fly and I’ve got super strength, so I think I can take him a little bit better,” Mark boasted. “But I’m not going to take you next time, don’t worry.”

“Mark, I’m not going to just let you charge off and get yourself stabbed by a monster or that pink mustached maniac,” Daniel spat, Mark could see live fire in his eyes. “I’m already involved, I’m coming with you.”

“Okay,” Mark nodded, “we’ll see what we can do,  _ after _ I figure out how to walk again.”

“Deal,” Daniel.

They shook on it, and Mark spent the rest of the morning trying not to float off and hit the ceiling. He was getting better.

As it turned out, it took a couple hours to learn not to float off, and almost two months to learn to do something more than float. He figured out he could jump off while floating, but Mark found himself drifting off in a random, aimless direction while his friends laughed at him. Daniel seemed to pick up control of his fire powers easily, making Mark feel like he wasn’t doing it the right way a couple of times. Flying was something else, and Mark had to admit, a huge part of him wondered how far up he could fly and if he was superpowered enough to actually reach the stars.

Honestly he spent a little too much time thinking of that. Of living his dreams of going to space and seeing what was out there. But Mark was always afraid of accidentally getting hit by a plane or something like that, so he never tried while he still so new at the whole flying thing. Unsurprisingly enough, there were no books on learning how to fly.

Once he was confident enough that he wasn’t going to break his computer just by using it, Mark began studying Dark. He looked for any information on him, and for a central part of the city itself, there wasn’t much on the thing. But Dark was territorial, all Mark needed was to get his attention anyways.

He’d keep practicing and planning, and then Mark would make his move against Dark himself. After all, Dark’s grunts and thugs were probably a good place to start anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plan on doing other origin stories for the AU, not a Dark and Wilford one because Who Killed Markiplier and Damien do a better job than I ever could.


End file.
